BELLEVILLE — The wife of a Belleville man who was shot 24 times by township police after a domestic dispute earlier this year has formally filed a wrongful death suit against the department.

Judy Breton, the wife of 40-year-old Dante Cespedes, filed a complaint today alleging four Belleville Police officers used excessive force and violated her husband's civil rights when they shot and killed him inside the family's apartment on July 9, according to court papers.

Breton is seeking $10 million in damages, according to the complaint. Her attorney, Marc Bengualid, declined to comment further.

On the night of the shooting, Breton went to Belleville police headquarters and told officers that Cespedes had struck her after an alcohol-fueled argument. When four Belleville officers arrived at the family's apartment, Cespedes allegedly lunged at them with two knives.

The officers fired 30 rounds at Cespedes, striking him two dozen times, according to court papers. Officers Angelo Quinn, Charles Mollineaux, Matthew Dox and Jack Baumgartner have been named in the suit, which contends that Quinn and Mollineaux each fired 14 times, while Dox fired twice.

Mollineaux and Dox were also among several officers named in an excessive force lawsuit filed by a Belleville resident in 2012.

"I told them just to take him out of the house," Breton told The Star-Ledger in July. "Not to kill him."

Cespedes was a longtime chef at the Algonquin Hotel in Manhattan, and he had two children with Breton, who also had two children from a previous marriage. The 40-year-old had several prior run-ins with law enforcement, and was charged with assaulting a township officer in 2012, records show.

Katherine Carter, a spokeswoman for the Essex County Prosecutor's Office, said an investigation into the shooting is ongoing and the case will be presented to a grand jury in the "near future."

Belleville Police Chief Joseph Rotonda said he could not comment on pending litigation. The four officers remain on active duty, according to Rotonda, who said they were placed on "desk duty" and stripped of their weapons for a week following the July shooting.